Doodle

Part of speech: verb, noun

Pronunciation: /ˈduːdl̩/

Definitions

1. A casual, often aimless drawing made when distracted or bored, typically lacking seriousness and composed of simple shapes or patterns
2. An unstructured sketch produced during times of inattentiveness, often serving as a creative outlet and characterized by its playful spontaneity
3. A simple or random sketch made without focused attention, usually done to pass time or ease boredom

Etymology: The sense most people now know, an idle scribble made while the mind wanders, is the youngest layer of this word. Its oldest meaning was an insult: in the early 1600s, "doodle" was a dialect word for a fool or simpleton, borrowed from Low German "dudeldopp". German has a family of similar words, including "Dudeltopf" and "Dödel", all built around the same idea of a dim-witted person. The insult had a famous afterlife. The song "Yankee Doodle" uses the word in exactly that sense, and it was sung by British colonial troops before the American Revolution to mock the colonists as bumpkins. In the early eighteenth century, "to doodle" meant to swindle or make a fool of someone, a verb still tied to the old insult. The drawing sense appeared only in the 1930s, and it may descend from that verb or from "dawdle", meaning to waste time, which has carried that sense since the seventeenth century.

Synonyms: sketch, scribble, draw

Antonyms: finish, complete